Long-Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A) may become the dominant standard for fourth-generation (4G) wireless technology. The current version of the LTE-A standard is Release 11 (Rel. 11), and a particular feature of Rel. 11 is Coordinated Multi-point Processing (CoMP). Down link (DL) CoMP is a special type of multiple-input/multiple-output (MIMO) transmission in which the multiple transmission antennas of one or more transmission points transmit to receive antennas located on the User Equipment (UE).
In DL CoMP, multiple transmission points (TP) can potentially transmit to a UE. A UE monitors the channel state information (CSI) from the TPs in its CoMP measurement set and feeds back the CSI to the evolved Node B (eNB), which makes decision on which TP (or TPs) to use in the next DL transmission to the UE, and which transmission scheme to use. A CoMP resource management set is used for the UE to determine (or make a suggestion to the eNB regarding) which TPs to include in its CoMP measurement set.